The 4th Street Market District is a vision for economic development along 4th Street from Washington Street to North Broadway Street. This is a portion of the plan. (Courtesy of Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation)

Rather than driving next to the Lowertown light-rail stop at Fourth and Wacouta streets in downtown St. Paul, imagine sitting in an outdoor cafe smack in the center of the westbound lanes, within view of CHS Field, the St. Paul Farmers’ Market and Mears Park.

From Landmark Towers to CHS Field, property and business owners are contemplating what passes in some corners for heresy: closing at least part of a major downtown street to motorists.

The idea is that rather than scaring off residential and commercial tenants, a car-free promenade might be a draw. As evidence, proponents are pointing to the popularity of pedestrian-focused spaces such as Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis and even the French Quarter in New Orleans and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.

“What attracts people more than anything? More people,” said Tracey Kinney, assistant director of Urban Design for the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation.

Members of the Greater St. Paul Building Owners and Managers Association held a lunchtime panel discussion Monday to review a recent report looking at new approaches for Fourth Street in downtown St. Paul.

With a block-by-block analysis of Fourth Street from the J.J. Hill Center on Washington Street to the new CHS Field ballpark on North Broadway Street, the report “explores the latent potential of Fourth Street as the best alternative for an east-west bike and pedestrian thoroughfare in downtown.”

“I think it’ll be awesome,” said Bill Bisanz, CEO of Real Estate Equities, which owns the Lowertown Commons and manages the Tilsner Artists’ Co-operative. “Fourth Street really is the natural place for this to happen.”

The report finds general support for three road treatments in particular. From Washington to Minnesota streets (or Rice Park to the Central Station light-rail stop), the report recommends adding bicycle lanes and similar infrastructure “that complements parking.”

From Minnesota to Wacouta streets, the report recommends a “shared” or “convertible road” with limited vehicular traffic except perhaps at certain times.

“The details are not really worked out yet, but essentially limited to only vehicles accessing the parking structures and loading docks, and potentially during certain hours of the day,” Kinney said.

For the final stretch to CHS Field, it recommends allowing vehicles to travel on the eastbound lanes of Wacouta to Broadway streets.

The westbound lanes of Wacouta to Broadway would be entirely restricted to cars at all or most hours, opening up the possibility of extending the St. Paul Farmers’ Market all the way to Union Depot.

Panelist Julie Bauch, of Bauch Enterprises, said that before the Green Line light-rail line opened in 2014, planners once promised it would draw people out of the city’s skyway system, which would help building owners attract retailers to their ground-level storefronts. With the notable exception of some restaurants, that hasn’t really happened.

“If we create the walkability, the retail will follow,” said Bauch, whose company runs an office building at 180 East Fifth St., which maintains a back entrance at Fourth and Sibley streets.

St. Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker said that when visitors ask about getting from Rice Park to Mears Park, some downtown hotel managers encourage them to get in a car and drive the short distance because there are so few visible attractions on the ground floor between the two destinations. Besides that, there are safety concerns.

“We gain nothing by having people drive down Fourth, Fifth or Sixth,” Noecker told the audience. “They’re not looking at retail. They’re not looking at businesses.”

The 16-page report, titled “4th Street Market District: Connections, Retail and Art from Washington Street to North Broadway Street,” was prepared by the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation on behalf of Rich Pakonen, the developer behind the upscale residences in the Pioneer-Endicott building and the Jackson Ramp; Stephanie Weir of St. Paul Smart Trips/Women on Bikes; and Joe Spartz of the Downtown Business Alliance.

At least 18 business and building owners have sponsored and endorsed the report, including property owners Ted Bigos, John Rupp and Clint Blaiser.

Other suggestions include sidewalk lighting and public art; alley improvements; signage pointing to the St. Paul Farmers’ Market, CHS Field, the light rail, the Mississippi River and a future “River Balcony” promenade; and perhaps even public restrooms. The report says, “4th Street has two LRT stations and limited wayfinding to city and regional assets. Additionally, the street has underutilized storefronts that could attract and invite people with retail and art.”

Key questions remain, including how improvements would be funded.

The city is still finalizing the layout of a proposed Capital City Bikeway, or downtown bike loop, and it’s unclear whether the southern end of the loop would follow Fourth Street. Even if the bikeway lands on Kellogg Boulevard, that doesn’t necessarily undermine plans for a Fourth Street promenade, Noecker said.

Any changes to St. Paul driving lanes would have to pass muster with city officials.

Frederick Melo was once sued by a reader for $2 million but kept on writing. He came to the Pioneer Press in 2005 and brings a testy East Coast attitude to St. Paul beat reporting. He spent nearly six years covering crime in the Dakota County courts before switching focus to the St. Paul mayor's office, city council, and all things neighborhood-related, from the city's churches to its parks and light rail. A resident of Hamline-Midway, he is married to a Frogtown woman. He Tweets with manic intensity at @FrederickMelo.

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Nope, I hate Nicollett Mall, it’s nowhere near as popular as some suggest. Chicago tried a “mall” approach to State Street and then ripped it up and put traffic back on it.

The_Pope_of_Chilitown

Comparing State Street to any street in downtown St Paul is a huge stretch.

bannedsmoke

Comparing anything in St. Paul to New Orleans and Boston is even a bigger stretch.

The_Pope_of_Chilitown

No, those cities, like St Paul, are not gridded cities. Chicago is, and blocking part of a major thoroughfare doesn’t work. You can block some streets with little impact in more European layouts like St Paul, Boston, and NO.

mattaudio

It’s not accurate to say that “traffic” would be removed… only one type of traffic. Bicyclists, pedestrians, light rail vehicles, and more are still “traffic” both in colloquial use of the word and per MN Statute 169.011.84. These other types of traffic constitute the vast majority of traffic, and mobility, on 4th Street in Lowertown. Yet two sparsely used automobile lanes take up over a third of the total Fourth Street right-of-way. It only makes sense that we align our street design to its usage, and what would create value adjacent to the street which can then be recaptured. After all, the primary function of a street is a framework for creating and capturing place value.

Angie

They tried this same thing quite a few years back with 7th place. didn’t work out so well. Let St. Paul be itself, not a mirror image of Mpls. Two very different cultures.

The_Pope_of_Chilitown

How are the cultures different out of curiosity?

Angie

If you need to ask, then you are not from either St. Paul or Minneapolis.

The_Pope_of_Chilitown

That’s why I’m asking, is there something wrong with not being from the Twin Cities? It seems that a lot of St Paul residents more regressive and resistant to change and Minneapolis is more progressive. Is that about right?

bannedsmoke

No, St. Paulites are resistant in becoming Minneapolis.

The_Pope_of_Chilitown

Why? What’s the difference?

bannedsmoke

You have to experience it. Spend time in both.

Sportinlife10

It. just. is.

William Harris

Oh boy! Yet another gathering place for urban youth and homeless panhandlers with fuming breath.

Sportinlife10

now, now…

William Harris

I suggest that you inform yourself first hand with the nefarious activities now occurring in downtown St. Paul. By all means please do venture downtown some upcoming summer night and enjoy the “fun and games” of today’s youth.

Library Pervert

Downtown St. Paul is still reeling from having 7th Street torn up and split almost 40 years ago.

mattaudio

The comparisons to 7th Place are not valid. 7th Place, the pedestrian one, is literally a block long, between Wabasha and St. Peter. There’s nothing inherently dysfunctional about that block, the problem is that there’s nothing on the ends of the block.

The bigger mistake was building Town Square/UBS Plaza and MN World Trade Center creating two superblocks that simultaneously destroyed east-west pedestrian flows while also creating highly hostile canyons of nothingness between the otherwise decent areas south of 6th St and north of “new” 7th Stroad.

If we want to make 7th Place more viable, we need to reopen 7th St to the east by carving it out of those two complexes..

citizensp

100% agreement. Reopen the original 7th St. as a pedestrian retail street.

someobserver

Can you explain this further? I agree that what was built there in that way re: the street was a horrible idea, but I can’t see this “carving out” happening except at enormous cost and effort.

mtbr13

first the silly river walk or whatever its called and now this. This mayors administration spends money with no oversight…oh yeah it’s not theirs so what do they care. If they insist on spending my tax dollars on ridiculous activities why don’t create more programs so high school kids stop beating up teachers.

Sportinlife10

No, no, the (newly-elected, DFL/Teacher Union/endorsed- which came first?) School Board is going to do that. No, wait…

stormyweather1

There are a lot of good ideas in the report and hopefully many will come to fruition. I particularly think the idea of converting the alleys to pedestrian throughfares could be great in terms of enhancing that entire area between 4th and 5th Streets.

The Nicollet Mall comparison is a bit off the mark, but with better lighting and improved pedestrian corridors one could definitely market that area with a pedestrian-friendly, European feel to it.

The real thing killing the mood downtown are the skyways, which push retail up onto the second floor and encourage them to all run 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. hours to cater to tunnel-running office rats, so nothing is open after work. But those are likely not going anywhere so whatever can be done to work around the unwillingness of Minnesotans to put on coats and go out in the cold is welcome.

Chasmosaur

I’m not even sure it’s about the unwillingness of Minnesotans to put on coats and go out in the cold. I think it’s the perceived lack of activity in downtown St. Paul. Why leave a restaurant with Skyway access open past 3 pm? Everyone leaves town by 5 pm.

Which may have been true before, but it’s not so now. It’s not as vibrant as Minneapolis, perhaps, but when I think of all of the restaurants I can get to from the Skyway system in downtown Minneapolis after going to see something in one of the theaters on Hennepin, it just feels odd that not a single restaurant is even trying to be open.

Chasmosaur

“For evidence, they’re pointing to the popularity of pedestrian-only and pedestrian-mostly spaces such as the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis and even the French Quarter in New Orleans and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.”

Except Nicollet Mall, the French Quarter, and Faneuil Hall Marketplace do not have Light Rail running smack down the middle of them. (Not to mention they are much more open spaces not urban-canyon like.) People can barely avoid getting hit by the trains when there is traffic signage – and I’ve seen plenty of people walking in front of trains at the Union Depot station to know that people just don’t seem to consider them a threat. (And it’s the Union Depot station – not the Lowertown station.) I can’t imagine throwing a half-pedestrian/half-driving situation alongside the light rail isn’t going to be a disaster waiting to happen.

I agree they could use better signage downtown, and it is so incredibly dreary along 4th that a public art installation would make a huge difference as far as making it more inviting for pedestrian traffic.

The River Promenade makes about a million times more sense, though, and will add a scenic walkway on the east-west axis of downtown. Why would we have this a block or two over when the River Promenade will be two blocks over as a purely pedestrian dedicated area?

bannedsmoke

Comparing any part of St. Paul to the French Quarter and/or Faneuil Hall is quite a stretch. There are actually things to do in those two cities as a whole. There’s history. There’s culture. Add a pedestrian walkway doesn’t make St. Paul into anymore than it is. Lowertown, a very minor league ballpark, restaurants, art galleries that are there one moment and broke the next. Add the narrow pedestrian walkway with a train going down the middle and you’ll just get more Lowertown where storefronts change daily.
I’ve said it a million times over, if BLM Mayor Coleman wants Minneapolis, why doesn’t he just move across the river.

Buster

What a mess of a map.

TheRelevant

A trolley type bus for tourists starting at the Union Depot traveling West on Kellogg looping the Excel Center and returning on 5th to St Peter and then to Fourth all the way to N. Broadway and then back to the Depot would add nice to this plan. Downtown St Paul has so much more to offer tourists than Minneapolis. They just need an easy and safe way to get to all the places that are on or close to this route.
Something like this. http://www.sbtrolley.com/

Sans Comedy

Is anyone going to point out how stupid J.D. Gassman is in that photo for allowing his dog to be on the tracks at a light rail station?

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